He gave one of his evil smiles. The kind that usually meant the class was about to suffer a lecture on mathematical history analysis, or spend hours practising safety drills. ‘When the class find out you’ve packed your bags and gone, I’ll look like some extremist twentieth-century dictator unless I give an explanation.’
Fian and I looked blankly at each other.
‘Family crisis?’ suggested Playdon. ‘You’re Twoing, so the same family crisis would work for both of you.’
I nodded. ‘I’ve no idea exactly what, but …’
Playdon smiled again. ‘I won’t need to give details because it would be highly unprofessional of me to disclose confidential information about students. You know that, Jarra. You took full advantage of it when you started this course.’
I blushed. Playdon had known my application to University Asgard had come from an Earth school. He’d realized that meant I was Handicapped, but the rules about confidential information meant he had to keep quiet while I told the class a pack of lies. That hadn’t bothered me when I first arrived, bolstered up with my fury against all exos, but I felt bad about it now.
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry about it now.’ He gestured at the portal. ‘You’d better get moving.’
Fian entered the destination code of the nearest Earth Africa Transit. As he stepped into scan range the portal started talking.
‘Military traffic. There is no charge for this journey.’
Fian froze, and then turned to look at me, his mouth open.
I gulped. ‘Military personnel travel free on the portal network. That means …’
‘Our genetic codes are already registered as on Military assignment,’ said Fian. ‘It’s not a mistake. This is really happening.’
I realized something. ‘Pre-empts! That’s why the class was late back!’
‘What?’ asked Playdon.
‘The pre-empt system, sir. Handicapped babies are portalled to Earth as emergency medical pre-empts. Their signal automatically overrides other traffic on the relay system, grabbing any portal it needs to boost their signal on through to the Hospital Earth Infant Crash units. It’s mostly medical emergencies that need to bypass all the queues at Sector Interchanges, Off-worlds and Transits, but the Military use pre-empts for urgent journeys too.’
Playdon gave a nod of understanding. ‘And Alien Contact is active, so …’
‘Exactly. The Military will be moving massive amounts of personnel and equipment. They’ll be using the pre-empt system, both for speed and to avoid everyone asking questions about why Military officers are pouring through every Sector Interchange. Each pre-empt locks out everything on its path, tying up a lot of the relay system, cross-sector and off-world portals. Everyone else has to wait until they’re free.’
‘Jarra, we have to go,’ said Fian in a grimly terrified voice.
He was right. I didn’t understand what mad reason Alien Contact had for calling us in, but we had to report as ordered.
We stepped through the portal.
3
Fian and I had gone through the first stages of shock and disbelief. Now the enormity of the situation was sinking in. Alien Contact programme had been in place for centuries; preparing for the day the Planet First teams didn’t just find alien animals on a new planet, or a neo-intelligent alien species that used flint tools, but technologically advanced aliens that were a potential danger to humanity. Everyone learned about it in school. Years ago, I’d sat next to Issette in a classroom full of 12-year-olds, having a lesson about it.
I could remember that day perfectly, and how furious I was. I could never portal to the stars. Even if humanity met aliens, I never would. Why did they have to rub my nose in the fact by teaching me about the Alien Contact programme?
So I was fuming, and Issette was bored and messing around with her lookup. Keon was sitting on the other side of her, she passed her lookup to him, and he passed it back again. Then there was an unforgettable moment when Issette hit the wrong button and the lookup announced in a loud voice. ‘Duckfoot Doyle is soooo boring today.’
The rest of our class thought this was hilarious, but Doyle, our teacher, didn’t see the funny side. He grabbed Issette’s lookup, and not only saw the words it had just read to the delighted class, but also found an animated picture of himself in the centre of a group of yellow ducks, all doing the funny walk that had earned him his nickname. Issette got in trouble about the words. I got in trouble about the ducks.
I complained to Keon about that later, since he was responsible for the ducks. He said it was too much effort to confess. These days, Keon has progressed from creating duck images to seriously zan laser light sculptures, but he still goes through life making as little effort as possible.